Statement by the President Announcing a Change in the Foreign Service.

I AM PLEASED to announce an action taken by the Secretary of State and the Director of the United States Information Agency which will do much to provide the United States with a more flexible and effective Foreign Service.

Under the new arrangement, the vast majority of USIA career Foreign Service officers will become an integral part of the Foreign Service. Affected will be almost 900 officers now working for the Information Agency. The arrangement will:

1. Provide a single pool of carefully selected, highly trained talent from which both agencies may draw to fill key posts.

2. Increase substantially the efficiency and the flexibility of those personnel available to represent the United States abroad.

3. Permit a greater exchange of personnel between State and USIA, thus insuring that our officers acquire the wide range of experience and contacts so ,vitally necessary to the effective conduct of foreign policy.

4. Meet recommendations of the Herter Committee, the Advisory Commission on Information, and various other study groups that USIA career officers be given the same rights and perquisites and be subjected to the same stringent judgment of performance as personnel already in the Foreign Service.

5. Increase greatly the already high level of cooperation and joint planning between State and USIA.

In my opinion, this action, which I wholeheartedly endorse, is a major step forward in our constant efforts to improve the efficiency of the Foreign Service of the United States--a Service that is vitally necessary in an era when the burdens of world leadership are heavy upon us.